Mortal Causes

'For coming here?’ She looked around. 'This is where she lives?’

She sounded completely unconcerned. Rebus didn't need this. His head felt like it was splitting open above the eyes. He needed to bathe and to stop thinking, and it would take a great effort to stop him thinking about this case.

'You're tired,' she said. Rebus wasn't listening. He was too busy looking at Patience's parked car, at her gateway, then along the street, willing her not to appear. 'Well, I'm tired too, John.’

Her voice was rising. 'But there's always room in the day for a little consideration!'

'Keep your voice down,' he hissed.

'Don't you dare tell me what to do'

'Christ, Caro…’ He squeezed shut his eyes and she relented for a moment. It was long enough to appraise his physical and psychic state.

'You're exhausted,' she concluded. She smiled and touched his face. 'I'm sorry, John. I just thought you'd been avoiding me.’

'Who'd want to do that, Caro?’

Though he was starting to wonder.

'What about a drink?’ she said

'Not tonight.’

'All right,' she said, pouting. A moment ago, she had been all tempest and cannon fire, and now she was a surface as calm as any doldrums could produce. 'Tomorrow?’

'Fine.’

'Eight o'clock then, in the Caly bar.’

The Caly being the Caledonian Hotel. Rebus nodded assent.

'Great,' he said.

'See you then.’

She leaned into him again, kissing his lips. He drew away as quickly as he could, remembering her perfume. One more waft of that, and Patience would go nuclear.

'See you, Caro.’

He watched her get into her car, then walked quickly down the steps to the flat.

The first thing he did was run a bath. He looked at himself in the mirror and got a shock. He was looking at his father. In later years, his father had grown a short grey beard. There was grey in Rebus's stubble too.

'I look like an old man.’

There was a knock at the bathroom door. 'Have you eaten?’

Patience called.

'Not yet. Have you?’

'No, shall I stick something in the microwave?’

'Sure, great.’

He added foam-bath to the water.

'Pizza?’

'Whatever.’

She didn't sound too bad. That was the thing about being a doctor, you saw so much pain every day, it was easy to shrug off the more minor ailments like arguments at home and suspected infidelities. Rebus stripped off his clothes and dumped them in the laundry basket. Patience knocked again..

'By the way, what are you doing tomorrow?’

'You mean tomorrow night?’ he called back.

'Yes.’

'Nothing I know of. I might be working…’

'You better not be. I've invited the Bremners to dinner.’

'Oh, good,' said Rebus, putting his foot in the water without checking the temperature. The water was scalding. He lifted the foot out again and screamed silently at the mirror.

20

They had breakfast together, talking around things, their conversation that of acquaintances rather then lovers. Neither spoke his or her thoughts. We Scots, Rebus thought, we're not very good at going public. We store up our true feelings like fuel for long winter nights of whisky and recrimination. So little of us ever reaches the surface, it's a wonder we exist at all.

'Another cup?’

'Please, Patience.’

'You'll be here tonight,' she said. 'You won't be working.’

It was neither question nor order, not explicitly.

So he tried phoning Caro from Fettes, but now she was the one having messages left for her: one on her answering machine at home, one with a colleague at her office. He couldn't just say, 'I'm not coming', not even to a piece of recording tape. So he'd just asked her to get in touch. Caro Rattray, elegant, apparently available, and mad about him. There was something of the mad in her, something vertiginous. You spent time with her and you were standing on a cliff edge. And where was Caro? She was standing right behind you.

When his phone rang, he leapt for it.

'Inspector Rebus?’

The voice was male, familiar.

‘Speaking.’

'It's Lachlan Murdock.’

Lachlan: no wonder he used his last name.

'What can I do for you, Mr Murdock?’

'You saw Millie recently, didn't you?’

'Yes, why?’

`She's gone.’

`Gone where?’

'I don't know. What the hell did you say to her?’

'Are you at your flat?’

`Yes.’

'I'm coming over.’

He went alone, knowing he should take some back-up, but loath to approach anyone. Out of the four – Ormiston, Blackwood, `Bloody' Claverhouse, Smylie – Smylie would still be his choice, but Smylie was as predictable as the Edinburgh weather, even now turning overcast. The pavements were still Festival busy, but not for much longer, and as recompense September would be quiet. It was the city's secret month, a retreat from public into private.

As if to reassure him, the cloud swept away again and the sun appeared. He wound down his window, until the bus fumes made him roll it back up again. The back of the bus advertised the local newspaper, which led him to thoughts of Mairie Henderson. He needed to find her, and it wasn't often a policeman thought that about a reporter.